I found a kiln controller for $400 from TheroMart in Canada and my sweetheart bought it for me for Christmas. My manual kiln WITHOUT an automatic shut-off was a pain in the butt. Normal firing schedule was to turn it on low at 6am, turn it to medium at noon, and to high at 2pm. Check on it every hour or so until it close to temp then check every 15 minutes until time to turn it off. Averaged about 10 trips to the kiln per firing and had to be done on the weekend when I was going to be home.
So I was looking forward to being able to set the kiln controller and walk away but it turned out to be rather frustrating. This controller is made for a wide range of temperature control application, everything from ceramics firing to beer making. So it doesn’t come programmed. That’s fine except the programming directions sucked. So did customer service. It always took 1-4 WEEKS for them to get back to me and they we’re very helpful when they did reply. Finally got it programmed and it still wouldn’t work. Turned out my outlet wiring couldn’t carry enough current and the voltage drop kept re-setting the controller. So I ran a new heavy duty circuit and a new breaker. 4 months and 3 days after Christmas it looks like it is finally working!!!

I really know your frustration. I bought a scale that would weigh up to 222 pounds. Perfect only the instructions said you had to calibrate it with weights. I called customer service and was told to go to a box store and ask to use their weights. I took it to the box stores in our town and was told "Oh we use a service to calibrate". I ended up giving the scale away and just weigh at the post office. Bummer. Wendy

PS glad you got it working, now you can do many projects to entertain us with
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I just wanted to add this beauty to Mikes creations, He is the nicest person alive and he sent this to me several years back because he knew I like skulls. This is a long piece so I took picture of several sections. It is made of clay, it has weathered outside and from high winds some parts have fallen but I put them all together and it looks great. He even put a solar light in the skull and it would light up at night in red color. Thanks again Mike.